Chicago Cubs Owner Spends Big for Republicans

Katie Pavlich

9/17/2012 1:09:00 PM - Katie Pavlich

It looks like President Obama might not be rooting for the Chicago Cubs home team much longer. The owner of the baseball team is donating millions of dollars to the Romney team and bulking up bank accounts for Republican congressional races ahead of the November election.

A billionaire investor whose family owns the Chicago Cubs is pressing ahead with a multimillion-dollar pro-Republican political campaign, bucking a political furor that emerged when the effort first become public.

Joe Ricketts, the founder of what became online brokerage TD Ameritrade Inc., plans to spend $10 million airing ads supporting GOP nominee Mitt Romney and another $2 million to help Republicans running for Congress. The ads will begin airing this week.

The ads stack up as one of the biggest electioneering efforts by an individual in the 2012 election. National cable television spots will feature disaffected Obama supporters talking about why they plan to support Mr. Romney. Other TV ads will run in battlegrounds including Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio and Iowa—states where Mr. Romney needs to do well.

"As chairman of the Chicago Cubs, I repudiate any return to racially divisive issues in this year's presidential campaign or in any setting -- like my father has," Ricketts said in a statement released by his spokesman Dennis Culloton.

"My focus is on one of the great American pastimes, baseball. And our team and every other Major League Baseball team are great examples of people of diverse backgrounds working together towards a common goal. I shall have no further comment on this or any other election year political issue. My full-time focus is on making the Chicago Cubs a World Series champion, preserving Wrigley Field and making the Chicago Cubs a great corporate citizen."

Here is the message I have for Obama Campaign Chief David Axelrod when he starts complaining about how much money Romney will have from "outside" groups: